on 5/12/05 4:36 PM, Peter Relson at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > We all know and love (well, at least know) that the limitation > in JCL for PARM= is 100 total characters. We are thinking (again) > about expanding this, and would like to hear your thoughts. > > Some of the possibilities include > - just extending, in JCL processing, so that the target routine > gets what it does today (halfword length followed by string, > only the string would potentially be >100). This is obviously > the nicest from the target routine's perspective if it can handle > the extended length > - a service that the target routine can call to "give me my parameters". > Obviously the target routine would have to change in order to utilize > that service, and likely would have to dual-path for systems that do > not have the service > > One choice that proved not feasible was using a second parameter. > Various utilities already take advantage of the "known" structure > and pass additional data as additional parameters. > > Some of the potential problems an existing target routine might have > with an extended length parameter are > - It provided an area via DS of 100 characters, "knowing" that the > limit was 100, and then did an EX (execute) of an MVC to move the > parameter string, using the length in the halfword. Unfortunately, > if the length is (for example), 256, this would overlay the next 156 bytes > - It did some operation (MVC, TRT, whatever) that is limited to 256 > characters which works fine when the limit is 100, but if the routine > was passed 257 characters of data, it might process that as 257 mod 256 > characters in some ways. > > What do you think? > > Peter Relson > z/OS Core Technology Design
Peter, Hope you manage to do it, long overdue:-) As long as you let people know ahead of time its coming I don't see it as a show stopper myself. Ed ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
